State's seniors lean toward Clinton, Giuliani, survey says

Both candidates beat their rivals on 2 core issues, but most voters were uncommitted.

August 24, 2007|By John Kennedy, Tallahassee Bureau Chief

TALLAHASSEE -- Although most older voters in both parties remain undecided about whom they want in the White House, Hillary Clinton gets the highest marks among Democrats on core senior issues, according to a survey released Thursday by AARP in Florida.

Seventy-six percent of Democratic seniors polled in Florida said the New York senator and former first lady had at least somewhat well addressed the issue of providing access to affordable, quality health care. On helping Americans build financial security, 56 percent of older Democrats surveyed said Clinton had done well in tackling that goal.

Clinton's nearest rivals among Democrats were former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama. Fifty-six percent thought Edwards had sufficiently addressed health-care issues in his campaign, while 42 percent felt the same about his approach to financial-security issues. Obama drew marks of 49 percent and 38 percent, respectively.

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani topped the Republican field of presidential contenders by drawing high marks on health care from 47 percent of committed GOP seniors, with Arizona Sen. John McCain getting 37 percent. Giuliani and McCain were also one-two in financial-security issues, drawing 35 percent and 31 percent, respectively.

"The leader at this point is `don't know' and then second is `I'm willing to listen,' " cautioned Jeff Johnson, manager of state operations for AARP Florida, which has almost 2.9 million members.

For example, nearly eight in 10 potential older voters in the Republican primary said they still did not know enough about the candidates to say who best addressed health care.

Slightly more than half the Democratic voters also were unable to say who best addressed the issue. But among those who said they had decided the question, 34 percent named Clinton as the best, making her tops from either party.

"Whatever the individual candidates are scoring at this point in the game are far outweighed by the number of people who really haven't made up their minds," Johnson said.

AARP surveyed 500 members who are likely Republican voters and 500 likely Democratic voters in Florida, part of a series of early primary or caucus state surveys conducted by the senior-advocacy organization. Similar polls were taken in Iowa, South Carolina, Nevada and New Hampshire.

While health-care and financial-security issues are important to seniors, the central issue facing the country was the war in Iraq, the survey found for both Democratic and Republican voters.

In all, 86 percent of Democratic voters feel the country is headed on the wrong track. Meantime, 44 percent of older Republicans said the country was on the wrong track, while 42 percent said the United States was headed in the right direction.